Battle of Monte Cassino: COL Young Oak Kim Part I

Ken Harbaugh:

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I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from COL Young Oak Kim, a Korean American who served with the famous 100th Infantry Battalion in WWII. The 100th was a racially segregated unit composed mostly of second generation Japanese Americans (known as Nisei) from Hawaii. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, another segregated Nisei regiment, with many members coming from Japanese internment camps, trained with the 100th in the States, and later absorbed the 100th after the 100th left Italy.

In this first part of his interview, COL Kim talks about joining the Army, the differences between the 100th and the 442nd, serving as a Korean American in World War II, and the Battle of Monte Cassino.

COL Young Oak Kim:

I joined them in, I think it was early February of 1943. I had just graduated from officer candidate school. And I was held back and didn't leave camp with the rest of my class. Usually the moment they give you your second lieutenant bars, they shoot you off to your command because they're so short of officers. In my case, I sat around for three or four days. And I asked them, "What's the matter? How come?" And they said, "Well, your unit is moving from Wisconsin to Mississippi." So I asked them to give me my orders and let me have a delay in route. So that's what I did.

I left Fort Benning early, went to Jerome, Arkansas, visited some of my friends from Los Angeles who were incarcerated in a camp up there, and spent a week there. I think I was the first guest ever in a camp, at least in Jerome.

And then from there I went to the 100th. And when I arrived, they were in the field. And the only two individuals that I knew of that were in camp, there could have been several others but I didn't know, was Doc Comatani, who was considered the father of the battalion. He was the battalion dental officer. And battalions aren't authorized a dental officer. But when the unit finally was going to combat, the Japanese American Committee realized, they felt the boys needed someone they could talk to. And someone who could if necessary bypass the chain of command. And who would have the respect and the dignity to be able to speak privately to the battalion commander. And so Doc Comatani, that position was made, and he was a dentist, so we had a dental officer. And so Doc was there.

I think that we had some trouble with the 442nd early back in Shelby, and that's understandable. There wasn't trouble because we were the 100th and they were the 442nd. I think the trouble was that the bulk of the recruits, that is with no prior service, were from the islands and almost all the NCOs were from the mainland. And there was a great difference of cultural values between the Buddha heads from the islands and the Niseis from the mainland. The whole atmosphere was different.

What happened is that lots of times, the young recruit felt that he was being unjustly mistreated or given wrong orders or the NCO is being unfair, and come to his older brother or his cousin or his uncle in the 100th and complain. And so then the uncle or brother would have to then go to deal with the NCO and end up beating him up. Some of that feuding started from there, not because one was 100th and the other was the 442nd. It's because, "What the hell are you doing with my younger brother?" Or my nephew or something.

We have three different kinds of individuals, even within the 100th, 442nd, all told. Within the 100th, the bulk of the original men were drafted before World War II. And then they helped defend the islands during Pearl Harbor and immediately following it. A couple of months after Pearl Harbor, then they were disarmed and then they were given menial tasks and things like that. But they were all over 21 at the time they were drafted.

And then we have the recruits from Hawaii, which make up the vast number because originally they were supposed be 50% from the camps in 50% from the island. It didn't turn out that way. The number of men that volunteered for the camp turned out to be smaller, and that's understandable. When you're abruptly and rather put in camp like that and the family loses everything, it's a pretty terrible psychological, financial and physical blow to the family. I'm amazed the number of men that did volunteer, but what you have then are people who are, what I put into category, almost like super patriots in a sense. But still it shows because I felt that I was in that category myself because I honestly was inculcated to believe and I still believe to this day that America's the greatest country. I think we don't live up to our constitution like we should, but certainly we try.

There was no doubt among the men that they were considered disloyal and they had to prove their loyalty. But I'm saying that extended beyond just the Japanese Americans, it extended to many of the Caucasian officers felt the same way. They felt that their country had done something wrong and it was up to them to help, how would you say? Straighten their own country out. People like George Grandstaff from Glendora, California who was our supply officer. I'm saying yes, it was very acutely felt by everybody in the unit. We had long, long discussions on this. I can say firsthand that among the officers when we were in Louisiana and I talk about these long marching trips, well in between the long marching trips we ended up in lonely little camps with just...

I know the NCOs had these camps as well as the officers and most of the senior officers left for town [inaudible] but the vast majority of us had nothing to do. And so there were every weekend we had a whole day of nothing but sitting around after making this grueling 35 mile hike. We sat around and talked about things like this. We talked in great detail, people like Saki Takahashi, the former senator Spark Mutsunaga. All the Japanese American officers participated and quite a few of the Caucasians officers participated in this. We discussed in great detail the discrimination, how people would be doing the same job and yet the Japanese American would get two thirds of salary.

In Hawaii it was different from the mainland. In Hawaii, you have to remember the minorities make up the majority. Less than a third of the population in Hawaii in those days were Caucasian. The vast majority were non-Caucasian and a good one third of the island population were Japanese Americans. So the Japanese Americans, when I tell you that the island boys are different psychologically from the mainland boys, there's a big difference. They make up a third of the population. They're the largest single minority group, larger than the Caucasian or anybody else. In the mainland, they make up less than 1% of the population and they're isolated. And so in the mainland, the philosophy is don't took your head up too high there, you're going to get nailed down. In the island you don't have that. So the island boy, even though he's a minority, even though he has all kinds of things against him, he doesn't feel intimidated. You see what I mean? Whereas a mainland boy does. No matter how good he is, no matter how strong he is, he may be the best judo guy on a block and could beat anybody up with a black belt and all that, psychologically in some degrees he's intimidated where the island boy isn't. And so there is that vast difference, but they all feel that this discrimination, it's a reflection on their honor, on their integrity, on everything about...

And like myself, I never held a gun in my hand before I went in the army. I tried to enlist before I got drafted and I was refused. I was drafted and I think they took me only because I had to because after all, the draft law only passed by one vote, and what reception would the army have or the government have if they refused to take Asians? Then all the Caucasians are rebelled. It wasn't a popular thing, the draft, in hindsight, it looked like it was popular, but it wasn't.

I graduated from my group of recruits almost number two in my class, I fired expert. I fired 10 bulls eyes in a row the first time I got to fire a rifle. The sergeant was flabbergasted. He asked what I was doing, I said, "What you people told me to do." I didn't know any different, see? I said, "Isn't everybody doing the same?" But my point is, when I got done, I was told I could be one of three things, a cook, a clerk, or a mechanic. I said, "But I did real well. Why can't I be a soldier?" They said, "No, no, no. In fact," he says, "We've got too many cooks and we've got too many clerks, so you're going to be a mechanic." I said, "I don't know anything about mechanic." "We'll send you to school." I said, "Well, I want to be a soldier." They said, "No, no, no, no. You can't be a soldier. You got the wrong color skin, the wrong color eyes and everything." He said, "You can't be a soldier." So that is a military attitude in those days.

I think we were lucky the 100th was the first one in combat because since they're all island boys though, they didn't have the inhibitions or any of the psychological problems the mainland boys had. They're all outgoing, happy-go-lucky, real Hawaiians, they weren't even in a true sense Japanese Americans, I think island people, I always marvel at them. They don't grow up trying to be an American, even though they are Americans. They don't really try to grow up being Japanese American. They try to grow up being Hawaiians. And so they all have that Polynesian attitude and who can hate a Polynesian? They all sing and dance, have a good time, give the shirt off your back, things like that.

San Michele going into Cassino. I was part of B Company then, and when I got to San Michele, that's a town at the foot of the mountain south of Cassino. In other words, from there you're down the mountain, and that's where the valley begins. And it's a good seven miles from San Michele to the city of Cassino. So still quite a ways. But from that point on, the Germans, when we got down there, they knew that our objective was Cassino, they could see us all the way in. That's when I was made the intelligence officer for the battalion. I was given that job on the top of the hill, but I refused to accept it until we got to over the hill.

The Germans were very, very well dug in. But they had the time and they did dig out dugouts out of solid rocks with air hammers. And so they were well dug in, well protected. And of course we were out in the open.

Shortly after New Year's Eve is when we launched the attack over the hills. We went up there primarily to try to find a way over into Cassino, but that wasn't our main purpose. I think our main purpose to go up there to relieve the special forces. The special forces was a special unit made up of Canadians and Americans that had been specially trained for mountain warfare, winter, snow, skiing, everything, parachute. They could do anything. And they were up there. And this was one of their, I guess, this was their second commitment to combat. They were committed briefly in Alaska. And this was their first commitment against a first class enemy. And they were running into serious trouble because they were freezing to death up there. A lot of it was because when they were pinned by German fire, they had to move. And so our job was to go up to relieve them. And then in doing so, we not only relieved them but managed to penetrate the German lines. And so therefore I think that's the first major penetration, forced the Germans to withdraw to Cassino.

And you normally think of Italy as being sunny and whatnot, because that's what all the tours are supposed to show you, but when you get up in the hills of Italy and it's cold, you're into snow. We were on top of those mountains, we were in at least a foot of snow or more. And we were up there for about a week. We had a terrible time because of the Hawaiian boys. This is the first time we were physically in snow for a length of period in combat. And the first night, we hiked all night, and there was a blizzard all night. And I don't think we knew where the hell we were going and had no idea of where we were. And come down, all of a sudden we were faced with a German enemy on higher ground and are looking up at them. And he's very, very well dug in. So we start a little firefight with them. And we're not being aggressive at all, we're just shooting and moving around and trying to determine what's out there and try to figure out where are we. That was, B company was a lead company. And I'm laying there on the ground. I have a rifle and I'm trying to shoot a German that must be a good 350 yards away. He's nonchalantly walking across the thing. And someone plops down next to me, he says, "You can't hit a goddam thing, can you?" And I just shrugged, I didn't pay attention, I just kept on shooting. And pretty soon he says, "Well, when did you get back?" I turned to see who it was. And it was a stranger I'd never seen before. He says, "I'm your new battalion commander." He says, "You went to Naples without permission." I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. And he says, "I know that my orders telling you not to go to Naples was received in time for you not to go." He says, "Not only did you ignore the orders and go, but then the C company commander didn't stop you either. And theoretically you didn't stop there either, but you did I know." And he says, "Now that you're back, what did you bring back with you, anything?" I said, "Not much." I said, "I did bring back a few things." And I pulled a knapsack I had on the back, it was just a little thing, officer's pouch, and I opened it. And all I had was five bottles in there, five bottles of alcohol. He says, "Well, it shows you've got some sense, you came back with the right thing." I gave him, I says, "You have your choice." He looked them all over, he says, "I don't recognize any of the brands." I said, "Well, when you go to Naples these days, this is what you got, you got to choose." And so he picked one and he opened it and tasted it, he says, "Not bad," he says, "but I can't tell if it's gasoline or if it's alcohol." I said, "Probably a little bit of both." And he laughed and he said, "Where are we?" I looked at him funny, I said, "You're the battalion commander, you tell us where we are." He said, "Well, I don't know where I am." He says, "You look at the hills, how many do you count?" I says, "Near as I can count peaks," I says, "Something about eight or nine, there may be more, I can't see them all. And it's hard to tell because they're all white." He says, "Well, that's a problem." He says, "Here's the map, it only shows seven hills, already you counted two more than the seven, there could be as many as 10 up here. And so how do we know which of the seven hills and which one we're on?" I said, "That's easy to tell. I can tell you that in three minutes, five minutes." He says, "You can?" He says, "All right, smart ass, go ahead and do it." I said okay. So I called for artillery. And naturally they fired and then we saw nothing. I said, "The trouble is they're firing white phosphorus, which is normally what you fire when you're trying to do it." But I said, "Let's call for HE." That's high explosive, which will be black. So we did. And then I changed, I said, "I'm going to make a wide adjustment so we could make sure." And I did that. And I said, "Based upon those two things, I say we're here." He says, "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch. That's true," he says, "you did do it." He says, "You're not only an insubordinate smart ass, but you're smart too." He says, "I just lost my intelligence officer, how about becoming my intelligence officer?" "Now?" I said, "I'd rather stay with B company." He said, "You don't have much knowledge of military protocol." He says, "When a commander requests something," he says, "that's an order, don't you know that?" I said, "Well," I says, "you didn't order me." He said, "Well, I'm ordering you." I said, "I don't want to leave the unit I'm fighting with." I said, "We're facing an enemy," and things like this. I said, "This is the wrong time to leave." He said, "Well, damn it," he said, "if you're smart, you'd give that rifle back to that soldier there who could probably shoot it and hit that German and then you do the job you're trained to do." I said, "I wasn't trained to be an intelligence officer." He said, "Well, you got brains." He says, "When we get down off the hill and we hit this next town," he says, "you report to headquarters otherwise you'll be disobeying a direct order." And he called someone over, he says, "I want you to hear this order I'm giving him." So he gave me the order. He says, "Okay, now, we understand each other?" I said yes. Then that's how I ended up being the intelligence officer.

But the next day, my good friend, Kenny Eaton, who was commanding C company, was killed. This was the battle before Cassino. So we broke contact with the Germans, marched all night again in another blizzard, and ended up someplace else. And by the time we did it the third time, how and why we did it and where we did it, who the hell knows. We ended up behind the Germans and beat them in a pitch battle. And then from there it was the Germans withdrew and the hill was ours. The next thing you know then we were down in San Michele. But I think the Germans were surprised. And we were surprised.

From San Michele down to the absolute flat level, which is about a hundred yards, I think it's about a hundred yards or maybe a little bit more, from the near road to the far road. Alongside the near road is an irrigation ditch, which is about seven feet or eight feet wide, seven or eight feet deep. And it's full of very, very swift water because the Germans had dammed the water up there. And when they knew we were getting ready to launch the attack, they had broken the dam. And so the water was now flooded the land between the two roads. And that land was absolutely flat. The Germans had cut all the trees, leveled all the buildings. The only thing that remained of buildings were walls maybe three feet, three and a half, four feet high. They had made sure that there was no obstacle to hinder their view. And they could observe us. I learned this later when we were on the hill, we could see everything for seven or eight miles. So they saw us coming all the way. And we had some patrol die. We went down there a couple of times myself. And we lost a patrol there. So we knew some idea what it was like. We didn't get a far enough across the river to know. But then we knew that the Rapido River was on the other side. And beyond that, an embankment and then the other road. And we knew there was barbed wire fences and we knew there were a lot of Germans.

When we got the orders to attack, I can't remember the exact day of the attack, it was about the 25th or the 24th of ... 24th/25th of January of '44. We moved our troops down to the flat land during the early part of the evening. Because the attack was to take place at midnight, launched at midnight. At that particular time, Richard Misura had just returned from the hospital, and he was given command of company C, Mitzvacuda had company A and Saki Takashi had company B. And the attack called for C company to attack on the left, A company on the right, and B company to be in reserve. We were to make a direct assault. And our attack was to be I would say a good half mile or more north of the town of Cassino, to take the high ground immediately opposite. That was high ground, and it looked to us like almost an impossible task, but that's the job we were given.

At midnight, artillery barrages started. And they used a technique that was used in World War I, what they call a rolling barrage. The barrage progressed at a certain specific speed. And theoretically you're supposed to be able to keep up with it. Well, even on level parade ground, I doubt if we could have kept up with it, but maybe. But with the obstacle facing us, it was impossible. Long before we crossed the irrigation canal, the artillery was not only on the far side and going up the hill, but going over the hill. And so I made my mind then that if I ever had any control over artillery, it's the last method I'd ever use. It would have to be geared in such a way that it would be controlled by the progress of the troops, not by the troops keeping up with a mythical artillery march like that.

Immediately we ran into not only the problem of crossing that irrigation ditch, and we were able to cross it on a couple of places, we had brought some planks with us, but we didn't have the right equipment. And no one gave us any equipment, no place to get any equipment in those days. And there was no logs, no timbers, no nothing. So we had to find what we could to cross that thing. We had no engineer support or anything. I don't think the people at the higher level ever thought of anything like that.

Both C and A company ran into minefields. The flat area before it was flooded was full of mines. And on top of that, there were flares put out there, so that as a men tripped the mines or if they didn't trip the mines, they tripped the flares. Either way, it caused the Germans to drop artillery and fire their machine guns because they had it all tied and geared together, so they knew where to expect things. And they already had the certain spots plotted for their mortar fire. And so all it did is the flares just brought down death in a form. The other thing too, that flooded area was about knee-deep in mud, so it wasn't as though you're walking on dirt, you're knee-deep in mud. And trying to avoid piano wire in mud is not the best thing in the world.

So this is the situation. And by daylight, both C and A companies were able to get across that flat part, up to the river. Now we face a river that's been revetted with stones and concrete and other things. And it's 10 or 12 feet down and about 10 or 12 feet across. And the far wall is higher than the near wall. And then on top of that, you've got an embankment, you've got barb wire and you've got mines on that far side, and then you got machine guns guarding that barb wire. We were told that we were to assault that. And it was I would say almost an impossible task. We tried that day, didn't succeed. We were having one hell of a time that day.

We started with 26 individuals, and this includes the command group, the intelligence officer, myself, and the battalion commander, his radio operator, my radio operator, his artillery liaison officer and his radio operators, and then plus the heavy weapons people, plus my observation group and other people. So even as a stripped down version, there's 26 individuals there. By nightfall, only four of us left. Battalion commander, myself and two of my men. Everybody else had been wounded or killed. So you get some idea from that what the casualty rate is like.

And then that night, very close to midnight, we got an order, well, it wasn't close to midnight, it was about 10 or something, we got an order from Colonel Marshall, who was the regimental commander of the 133, Carley Marshall. In which he was telling our battalion commander, Jim Clouw, to commit B company at the crack of dawn to reinforce C and A. And then the three companies make an assault.

I somehow get the feeling at times ... And this is my first exposure to command level experience where you're dealing now in terms of 500 to a thousand lives, the first time I'm listening to conversations other than direct orders from a company commander, and this is the first time I listened to three West Pointers arguing and fighting. The first battalion commander, a Colonel Mosley, if I remember right, was arguing with Carley Marshall, what a stupid order it was. This is before ... He says the order to make the assault to cross is stupid, but this order to ... because he got the same order we did, to commit his reserve company in the morning. He said, "This is actually almost an illegal order." He says, "I can't order my reserve company across here, that's clearly suicidal." He said, "But that's a direct order, so I'm going to do it." He said, "I'm going to lead my reserve company." He says, "If I survive and live through this," he says, "I'm referring court-martial charges against you." He got killed the next day.

But I'm hearing this kind of thing as a brand new first lieutenant that went to officer candidate school. And now he's a West Pointer talking to a West Pointer. And my battalion commander, Jim Clouw, is refusing to make this attack also. He doesn't offer that he's going to lead it. He just says, "Yeah, going to order."

So the Regimental Commander, Carley Marshall, finally quit arguing with Casper and relieved him. Very close to midnight. And I remember talking to Jim up there and he was crying. And he says, "This is this just my goddam luck." He says, "It's bad. Because I commanded a battalion successfully all the way through North Africa, and I was relieved of command because some outfit in the first division went to town and tore up the town. It wasn't my outfit. As a result of that, Eisenhower relieved the division commander and all the battalion commanders." And he says, "I lost my lieutenant colonel." And he says, "I lost my battalion." He said, "I didn't do nothing." He says, "Here again, I'm trying to do what's right and I'm losing my battalion again." He said, "This is my military career," he says.

We were a big question mark. I think our division commander thought we were beginning to think we were something special. I think after the Battle of Cassino, we knew we were special. But at this point in time, he's beginning to think we're something special, and he's beginning to have a great deal of confidence in us. Mark Clark, we're just now beginning to come to his attention.

I know right from the very beginning, the division commander as well as Clark wanted to try to divert the rice to us to give us, try to save all the smaller size shoes for us and all that. But there just weren't enough small size shoes to begin with, so that was always a problem. There was never enough rice, so that was always a problem. And there were other things that were problems.

And this is not an indictment against the army, against the 100th, but the army in those days were ill-prepared for war. They didn't have the right uniforms, the right equipment, the right anything. We had the wrong machine guns, we had the wrong kind of ammunition. Our ammunition smoked. You'd fire your machine gun off, like building a little fire so the enemy can see it. They had smokeless ammunition, they had metal clips for their thing so that their guns never jammed, ours jammed all the time. They could change a barrel in 15 seconds. It took us 15 minutes, if you could do it, couldn't do it often.

From where we started, we went down and went up a knoll, and then this is the third knoll going toward, and then we come back. It's at the bottom of this, between these two was, on the way up there, when we got top of this knoll, I stopped my platoon, and I talked to the two squad leaders and my platoon sergeant. I said, "There's a German machine gun, down there." They looked at me like I got bat's in my head. And I said, "No. There's a German machine gun, down there." I said, "Now, I want you to go around behind, and I'll go around the front. And what I'll do, since it's terraced, I'll be below it, and I'll cross over, and we'll try to come from this way while you go from this way, see? And we'll get the machine gun between us." They went, and that's what we did.

When we got to the point, down below, where I crossed the terrace, I was the lead person, my platoon sergeant was right behind me. When I got to the far side, I pushed the bushes apart to crawl in. And just as I pushed it, there's a German face about this close to my face. It startled me. I almost jumped. But then, I had a pistol, a .45, and I fired. But it jammed on me. While I was trying to fire, I rolled. The platoon sergeant opened fire almost simultaneously. That fire caused the German machine gun to fire. There was a German machine gun, right there. And fortunately for us, it just missed because the terrace is there. We're just below the terrace. And then, of course, the squad that was going from the other way that immediately outlined where the machine gun nest was, in there, behind us, so they jumped on them. That's how we captured the machine guns. But coming back down the hill, we thought we killed this German, because we shot at him, even if my .45 jammed, the other guns hadn't. But he was alive down there at the bottom the hill. So, we bought him in with us.

We came to the second hill. I said, "No." I told them, "We can't leave this hill. If we leave the second hill, even though it's not as high as the other hill," I said, "we leave the whole battalion vulnerable." Because the Germans could come back during the night and occupy that hill again, or they might come in the morning. So, I told the platoon to stay there, and I went back, reported to the battalion commander, told him what the situation was then. He was sick. I didn't know at that time how sick he was, but he was relieved shortly after I was wounded, with bad case of ulcers. But he said, "Do whatever you want to. It's okay. You have my permission." So, I stayed out there.

When we were out there, trying to figure out how to man this hill, because it's lower than the one we just vacated. It's lower than the one the Germans occupy, lower than one the 100th has. But I felt it was a key hill. Then, one of our soldiers, and I can't remember, I think it might've been, if I remember, Irving Akashi who said, "In Italy," and I guess most places where they have rocks, "rocks have a way of working their way to the surface. And the Italians use those rocks to build fences, and do all kinds of things." On this particular hill, they built big mounds of rocks. And Irving said, "Why don't we take the rocks out of the center of these piles, and put a person in each one of them, and that way the Germans won't think anything of it, because they've been seeing these rock piles, all along." That's what we did.

But as it turned out, it could only take a little over a squad, and the rest of us would have to hide behind the far side of the hill. That's what we did. And come morning, we stayed there. About 9:00, the Germans suddenly come down off the high ground, and they come down to the base of the hill. We thought they were coming down and swarming up to attack us, but no. They were coming down and they formed up to attack the hill opposite us, the one we had vacated during the night, the one they had vacated during the night.

They assumed that all this patrol action, everything that occurred during the night, had come from the force that was on the other side of that hill. So, they're going up to retake the hill from these guys, not knowing that we're the ones that caused all the trouble, and we're sitting right there behind them. When they make their assault, and it must've been a company, by German standard, under strength and combat and all of that, must have been about 120 or 25, or something like that, assaulted that hill, waited until they got started, and then opened fire. Then, all the men jumped out of there, rock piles and whatnot. We opened fire. We all ran up and opened fire. We killed a large number, one large number, and the rest of them gave up. And some of them fled on to be captured by others.

Now, when they're standing down there in that hollow with their hands up, a lot of them, I decided to go down there to capture them. I stood up. And just as I started down the hill, with about five of my men, to bring the Germans up the hill, one of the Germans started to run. He had a sub machine gun. Our men opened fire on him, and they killed him. But as he was dying, he fell over backwards. And I think in his death, his muscle contracted, and he was firing that sub machine gun. And without even aiming or anything, he hit me with one of the rounds. That's how I got wounded. I got a bullet through my thigh.

He was a very young fellow. I doubt if he was 20, probably about 18. We were trying to stop his bleeding, which was down near his groin, which was very, very serious. And we weren't having much luck. And we knew that we wouldn't be able to stop it. It was a long ways to the aid station. And he knew it, too. I think he sensed it, and he kept motioning to something. He was speaking to us in German. We didn't understand what he was saying. He was motioning to his wallet in his breast pocket. So, we got the wallet out, and helped him turn it to a picture, I think, of his mother. And he was trying to tell us to tell his mother, I think, how he died, what happened to him.

I think then is when all the men felt very, very bad. And I felt particularly bad. Because it certainly dawned on us, not only do we not know who we're fighting, but they don't know who they're fighting. We're all fighting at the direction of somebody else. And even though I'm very, very much against the Nazis and their beliefs and what they stand for and what the Kremlin stood for, and what they did, I realized that this 18-year-old German didn't really know what he was doing. All he knew is he was doing what his people were telling was right. He was fighting for his God, which was the same as our God. And as long as the enemy was 100 yards away and faceless, it's one thing, but when he's right up there, you realize it's something else.

After I got hit, it's like someone taking a baseball bat and hitting you, and all of a sudden, all you know is a big whack. And then, next thing you know, you're on the ground. You don't know how it happened, or anything. But then I got up, and we went down the hill. We gathered up all the Germans, and came back up, up the top of the hill. And then, I dressed my wound, and whatnot.

Cascino was a very devastating blow to the 100th, in that our casualties were so high. Our casualties I say were high, in some ways, when you look at casualty figures, it depends upon, you look at the total number of casualties in the battalion, they don't look too high, because you're talking about a lot of people who don't fight. You're talking about drivers, cooks, all kinds of people, mechanics, and whatnot, clerks, and go on and on. Some are not even in the combat area. But when you take the number of people who actually fight, like we'll say the rifle company, and you go from about 186 down to 12, then it's different. When you go from 12 officers down to one, that's different. Now, you can go to weapons company, and they don't lose that many men, but we lost the company commander there.

You go to the headquarters company, certain elements, the headquarters company don't see any combat at all, and others do. But even in headquarters company, we took a higher rate of casualties in the headquarters for the Battle of Cascina than any other time, because the only way we get to resupply our people was with mules and carrying things on back. And since the fighting was so dangerous and so difficult that couldn't trust the Italian mule skins to take mules through. The only way was to have our own drivers and our own cooks, and other people to accompany them with guns. Then you could be sure your supplies were going to get through. Otherwise, they wouldn't. So our casualties were very, very high.

Within our line, fighting units, it was over 90% now. But if you take the total figure for the battalion, you'd say, "Ah, you're crazy." But with the fighting units, very high. But the casualties with the rest of the 34th division was equally high, you have to remember. We came out of Cassino. We went into a camp just south of St Giorgio, because we had to wait for replacements. And that's the first time we received replacements.

Even though we took a lot of casualties, I think, following Cascina, many of the casualties among the key people were, I call, superficial wounds. By that I mean flesh wounds, things that you know that they'll heal in a month, or a month and a half, and they'll be back with us. Because of that, and the high quality replacements we got, this is the first time we got replacements from the 442nd. And most of the replacements were island boys who had volunteered to come to the 100th. And they had to come because their brothers, older brothers, or cousins, or uncles or whatever in the 100th. There was a joyous reunion when they arrived, as well as a lot of acrimonious, bitter yelling, because the boys in the 100th were delighted to see them, but angry that they were stupid enough to volunteer for combat. Against all their advice and everything else, they still volunteered. But the 100th, we had a sense of feeling that we'd arrived, that we were really a really good outfit. And we felt that in our bones that we knew we could do as well, if not better than, almost any unit we were facing. The units we fought in Cascina where the first German parachute division, which was considered one of the elite units of the German army, at that time, and true, it was a bit fighting, no quarters given. We spent most of, over a month, in St Giorgio, waiting for the replacements from the 442nd, and getting ourselves reorganized, and whatnot.

I think as a result of Cassino, we suddenly come into full prominence. That is people are suddenly aware that we're there because now we have reporters from the LA Times and they're writing stories. And as a result of Cassino, following that, Readers Digest had an article calling us the Purple Heart battalion because we had earned enough purple hearts for almost every man in the battalion had a purple heart. It didn't mean every man had one because some of our cooks and drivers didn't, but some of the men had wounded so often that almost is a equivalent of a purple heart for everybody in the battalion.

So the army suddenly was becoming acutely aware of the fact that media was suddenly beginning to realize, here's a real story. And the boys found it interesting. Even the rear echelon, people enjoyed the boys because they had a reputation of being able to take the objectives. They had a reputation of fighting hard. And that they were fun.

So the boys that go back there, and I remember hearing stories up on the front, why how they were able to get certain things. They'd go back there and do hulas and sing and dance and all that stuff and put on a show for the boys in the rear depot. In the meantime, the rest of the boys that not involved in the show, they go back there and help themselves to what they needed. And the men up in the front could care less if they stole everything as long as they had a good show. But all they were taking was food they needed or equipment they needed. It wasn't like if you're going to take something to sell on the black market.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was COL Young Oak Kim. Next time on Warriors In Their Own Words, Kim talks about the Battle of Anzio, earning the Distinguished Service Cross, and his feelings about the war.

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